I am not saying Buddha and Confucius are considered gods. My point is they existed and taught that is why they have followers. Same thing with Mohammad and Jesus Christ. The difference between the four is that only Jesus Christ claimed he is God that is why the Jews crucified him for blasphemy. Peter the Cat, I am sorry you do not believe in God. But I will advice you, when you reach the lowest point in your life, challenge Jesus to show himself to you. He will reveal himself to you because he suffered all the atrocities that reflects in the Shroud for you. He loves you that much, him who knitted you in your mother's womb.

Every one is allowed to believe or not.As we are talking
about a religious matter,may I suggest a book called"Socrates,Jesus and Buddha",written by Frederic Lenoir.His works have been translated in several languages.It is inspiring reading and one can draw their
own conclusions.Good to have some guidance as well if nothing at all.

That´s not how it works. In science, something is false until proven true. Therefore you have to prove first that this cloth belongs to the proper era, and if you do that, then you have to prove that it belonged to Jesus. Taking into consideration that probably thousands of people where crucified during that time, I just don´t see how you could prove that.

My problem with the shroud is Jewish burial customs in the time of Christ: they didn't have a shroud. They wrapped the body in small pieces of cloth after applying ointments and fragrances. And as the Gospels indicate, there was a separate cloth for the head. The shroud clearly comes from a different culture if not a different time, also.

I learned to think scientifically in high school, a Catholic school, taught by Augustinian priests. The Augustinians are a scientifically-bent, skepical lot: Gregor Mendel (of Mendelian genetics) was one of them. (So was Luther.)
We, teacher and students, discussed the Shroud in Physics class. We had to conclude that, although we couldn't figure out exactly with what technology it was made, that it was most likely a pious fake. The burden of proof falls to the claimants of its genuineness, and the threshold of proof for this unprecedented, incomparable "miracle", was not reached. Its very incomparability engenders suspicion.
I also went to Catholic lower school, taught by Sisters of Mercy. They're very different from the Augustinians. Mercians are devoted to the poor and sick, and believe that their calling, and the calling of Jesus's people, is to relieve suffering. As their name implies, they emphasize that Jesus demonstrated mercy to the low folk whom he loved, so they do the same. They're also absolute egalitarians: they taught that we are better than no one, and nobody's better than us.
An education that teaches both how to think objectively, and our duty to our fellow man and woman, is golden.
I'm not Catholic any more, but I think that this Pope, by avoiding the pointless debate about the Shroud's provenance, to focus on humanity's pain, has got it right.

Given that you are no longer Catholic, it would be interesting to learn how you came to a conclusion that it is a “pious fraud.” There are, of course many such things, but the shroud is a unique object. As to the burden of proof, well if you mean the assertion that it is the burial shroud of Jesus, yes, of course. But as to being a “fraud,” to prove that charge is a burden that falls on you. You do have to tell us how it was fabricated. If it is a magic trick, so to speak, all such tricks have their explanations. You must have some idea, or do it all boil down to the fact that your teacher is a liberal Catholic who thinks that the Resurrection itself was a magic trick?

Isn't that the point of miracles: that you can't ever prove how they are done ? Never mind just the Turin shroud, but the whole house of cards falls down without faith.

I don't have any, myself, so it's nothing more than an interest of mine to wonder why otherwise sane and rational people believe in creationism, god given stones, the immaculate conception, the holy trinity, the immortal soul, transubstantiation, the resurrection, ascension, assumption, heaven, hell and all the rest of it. The very idea that anyone should need to disprove any of these things seems preposterous to me.

The faithful, knowing that none of these can be proved or disproved will always hold that the burden of proof is on the faithless, and vice versa.

The shroud, however, is an object not an idea. It is as real as the pyramids as real as the photographs made through the Hubbell. And more real then the stars they show. As for “creationism,” it is a theological teaching: Every individual soul was immediately created out of nothing by God. It is, in the Catholic (and Orthodox) tradition, about the nature of man, that he has a supernatural as well as a natural existence. For this reason, the Church was not disturbed by “Origin of Species,” and Cardinal Newman found it interesting.

Yeeees, but.. The shroud is real only insofar as it is a piece of cloth. Any organisation of pigment on it has not yet been proven to have a rational explanation. That isn't enough for me to make any leap of faith and declare it a miracle, and evidence of any god. Like the tricks of David Copperfield, I can wonder how it was done.

The Hubble telescope is an optical telescope working with the visible spectrum and slighlty beyond at each end. My own experience with optical telescopes and the night skies is enough for me to believe in the reality of planets and stars, the maths that can predict where they will be, and even extend my belief to findings of radio telescopes, radar, sonar etc. Creationism is indeed a theological teaching, and therefore falls at the first syllable. As I said above, if you take away any belief in any god as creator it all falls down. By the way, I thought your god laboured for six days rested on the seventh and created Eve from a supernumerary assymetric rib bone of Adam's, and that all mankind was descended from that couple via the begats. That rather blows a hole in the taboo against incest, I'd have thought.

Science and the natural world have far more miracles than any religion, and I regret that your faith seems to blind you to the wonders of the universe around us.

As to wide leaps of faith, I do not declare it a miracle, but as something we cannot explain. Is it a trick? Then it has an explanation. But the explanation is two fold. Not only must we duplicate it, we must duplicate using methods available to someone hundreds of years ago. We know what it is not. It is not a painting, nor a burn mark. It lies on top of the Linen with the thickness of a scanned picture on a piece of paper. Those who have played with the image say that it is in fact not a picture but a store of information that tells them that it is the representation of a three-dimensional image, which they by use of computer programs can turn into a three-dimensional image of a solid object, a complete human body. Such programs,of course are based on math, rubber-sheet geometry, a recent development which allows us to describe that wonderful “trick," that a six year old can master but only roughly describe, the tying of a shoe-lace. Therefore, some master might indeed, have produced the effect by the same kind of intuition based on his experience. BUt it seems to me, you fail to see how much your “science” take for granted. Mathematicians are divided about the nature of their science. Some think it a fabrication of the mind, whatever that is. Others agree with Bertrand Russell, a realist --and atheist--that mathematics accords with things outside of our mind. And as to your dismissal of creationism: I do not take Genesis as a literal statement of events, and neither do Catholic theologians, or at least they are not requited to. Careful you don't make the same mistake that Darrow did when he debated G.K. Chesterton. who non-plused Darrow by agreeing with Darrow’s main argument about Genesis. And again, the theory is about the nature of man, that he is more than the whirl of “atoms,” in mathematical terms, no more than statements of probability.

Whether maths is an abstraction or not seems rather irrelevant: it produces all sorts of useful results. Languages are also useful abstractions in that way. Both are completely independent of a belief in miracles, or gods. I'm intrigued. How do you reconcile your faith with evolution, and the way it contradicts Genesis ?

Well, you can of course just ignore the question, just as you can ignore the inner workings of this computer and do just fine--that is, until you are forced not to ignore it. We once took “ether” as a neat thing until an experiment showed it was just a useful fiction. You use the word “abstraction.” Don’t forget that is something we owe to the Greeks, and at bottom it is their idea that we can treat the “gods” as fictitious. Plato rejected them but ended up with something like our “idea”of God, by a kind of reduction. Not to a nullity, as the atheists tried to do, but to something like man. As for Genesis, again, do not try to reduce the Jewish notion of the Creator to the words in this narrative. If I may paraphrase pope Benedict, the first man was he who, however dimly, became aware of God, which is what not only Plato but many others have. The Bible is full of such stories. Genesis is mostly about such as a man, Abraham, and his family over a period of three generations and --by extension--many, many more.

How can I fail to ignore things that are imaginary? So, a lot of people think there is a god. As you say, a lot of people thought "ether" was real. So I'm not ignoring any question in saying that the gods are a fiction. I wouldn't even class them as useful. As for Genesis, I'm really puzzled by how it is fictional in parts yet at the same time is so important that I'm supposed to revere it and not try to reduce any notions of anything within it. Your propositions are laughable.

God is not “the gods,” In any case, are “the gods” any more a matter of the imagination than Niels Bohr’s representation of an atom? Which despite the name is not indivisible, or an entity that we can know directly through our senses. Hindu immaterialism makes as much sense --literally--as materialism. And surely the gods are as useful as “the sciences,” about which the average person knows almost nothing, except that like the genie in a bottle, they produce wonders if we know how to summon them.

Your god is one among many imaginary beings. It seems I only believe in one fewer than you. Bohr's model of an atom was the best fit simple atomic model for all the observable phenomena at the time, which was a hundred years ago or so. Of course, it has subsequently been obsoleted by more precise theories and representations, but it still serves well as a high school introduction to quantum mechanics and particle physics. Religious people always tend to portray science as believing it has all the answers, whereas anyone with any scientific knowledge at all knows that that is the antithesis of good science, that seeks to continually improve and extend our knowledge, often at the expense of exiting models. The important thing about science is the scientific method. It has served Archimedes, Newton, Einstein and Hawking well. Newtonian physics still works well when designing a building though.
How can any god be as useful as the sciences you are so quick to scorn? The scientific method produced flint axes that could cut wood to build shelters, domesticated animals, farmed crops, ground wheat, invented the wheel, and has continued to codify knowledge, theorize, explore and invent ever since then. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, look around. Everything that counts as part of civilization has come from the scientific method. The papyrus/paper ink and printing presses that distributed the great works of literature to the masses, the text books that continue to be used to educate, the chairs the students sit on, the buildings they are in. The abstract mathematics that Alan Turing developed that along with Babbage’s difference engine formed the basis of binary computing machines that, oh yes, you’re reading this on one of their descendants. Machines that can transport me from one side of America to another, merely by sitting down and moving my hands and feet, without any physical exertion: a car.
What has religion given us to set against these marvels and wonders that are forever taken for granted ? Religion does seem to be a human instinct, and offer certain individuals some comfort. Some religious organizations have done some pastoral good via hospices, education and charitable work supporting the poor and disadvantaged. But that is as naught when set against the achievements of science.

How do I scorn science if I say that the atom is an imaginary object.something that we can know only indirectly and by mathematical representation? Most of our science and technology makes no use whatsoever of this model, which ironically tells us that an atom is NOT a single object at all. f course you are right about the great scientists, that they make no pretense to knowing all the right answers. Bohr himself was irritated by all the bowing and scraping from the other scientists at Los Alamos when he visited the bomb project. He was interested in solving problems, not in having people kiss his ring. Darwin himself went wrong by jumping to conclusions because he knew little about inherited characteristics except what was told him by animal husbandry. Others tried to make natural selection to explain everything. It quickly became”the latest thing.” and this make social darwinism plausible to the next three generations, even though it has no necessary connection to the biological theory of natural selection. For so many people, evolution is a theory of everything, something as marxism is, and of course the clash between the two caused much disruption in Soviet biological research.

This Pope has common sense. Praise the Lord for giving him to us. Your kind assessment of the Pope is the first most charitable comment I read in forum like this coming from an ex-Catholics. I believe Jesus will call you back to to his True Church.

"But people can miss the point of an ICON, so the theory goes, if they focus too much on the object itself (its age, its construction, its history) and forget to gaze beyond it."

Let´s double click on it and see what happens!

Why do journalists write these bs articles over and over again?
Whe have interesting scientific papers every day, but they are to dumb to understand them and write about a fantasy character. Write about the "Old Gods" from "King of Thrones" instead.

Do now pray to Turin Shroud, or kiss it. Do not make an idol of it. Remember God is testing you. ""You shall worship the Lord Your God, and Him only shall you serve." If you bow down to an idol, you will be an enemy of God. To all TRUE CHRISTIANS, this thing is idol of zero value. People such as Moses, David, Elijah, the apostle Paul, if they were living today, would tell you to keep away from the Turin Shroud. It is an abomination, Satan’s trap. Probably next to the shroud there is a box to drop in some coins, as if God is beggar hoping for your penny.

God should punish Moses for carving a brazen serpent and requiring the Israelites bitten by asps to gaze on it for healing or Paul for passing handkerchiefs also to heal . They made precedent for this what you call idolatry.

Suppose I kiss this shroud with my whole heart and soul worshiping, reverencing, praising and thanking God, Yahweh, for reminding me through this shroud of the passion, death, and resurrection Jesus Christ, does that make me an idolater?

Religion is founded on devoted fidelity since the time it came into existence. This was at a time when we, as a race, were sufficiently not developed intellectually to have a rational approach to our life and environment. There was no science as it is understood today and no scientific methodology. The simplest thing was to believe and so it happened.

Modern science began with Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton. But the age of reason can be said to have commenced with renaissance around 1600 CE. It is then that the awareness came to us for the first time that it is possible to understand this world using intellectual reasoning.

I have been reading the four canonical bibles for decades. These bibles are approved by Church, but not
many Christians will know, and even if they know, they might not spell it out, that Christianity as a religion was born nearly 300 years after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was born in political conflict and died in political conflict. That was his destiny. Christianity too was born in war and conflict(Emperor Constantine and the rest).Once religions became organised, they got politicised inevitably. Hunger for power and wealth set in and then the addiction to them. That hunger could be satisfied only by joining hands with those who are strong and so the inevitable happened. Misappropriation in the name god and his beloved son Christ, Krishna, Muhammed. The story is the same everywhere. After all at the end of the day, men are men everywhere. This is not withstanding that every religion has produced many outstanding individuals in the form of scholars, missionaries, travellers, monks and saints. That is the way it is and it will be so in future till such time the established religions evaporate naturally or otherwise.

Therefore, to remain in power and remain in the news, one has to invent myths and stories which will impact the psychology of believers. This happens in secular life much more than in religion and is done to earn name, fame and money. This is what is the truth of the matter told very very briefly.

All gods that human kind has created are imaginary. The real gods are we the people on this earth. It is for us to decide what we want to do. Go with biological evolution or instantaneous creation, fanciful stories or proven facts. The choice is left to us and no one else.

I think if you read any of the works of Alvin Platinga you would find your comfortable view of science and the modern world very disturbed. Plantinga recently received the prestigious Nicholas Rescher Prize for Contributions to Systematic Philosophy, awarded by the University of Pittsburgh’s Departments of Philosophy, History and Philosophy of Science Department, and the Center for the History and Philosophy of Science.

Plantinga has shown that those scholars who attempt to ground reality in naturalism are not just pursuing a futile quest leading to determinism and nihilism but are embracing views that defeat their very intellectual enterprise, including science itself. For example, Plantinga’s “evolutionary argument against naturalism” brilliantly argues that if evolution is true, it is an epistemic defeater for naturalism, leaving naturalism in ruin. The influential philosopher Thomas Nagel agrees and utilizes Plantinga’s work in his recent book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (Oxford University Press).

I realize that most “scientists” hold philosophy in low regard, but that is a result of your acceptance of the fallacy of scientism, not the result of reason.

I must have read the wrong history books or taught the wrong history. Before Constantine the Great, Saul, the Zealous Pharisee, and the Roman emperors starting from Nero were already persecuting the "sect" they call Christians and it was Constantine, 300 years after Paul and Nero who made a stop to the senseless murder of their followers. So Christianity pre-dated Constantine and could not have been his invention. How could Constantine institute the Roman Catholic Church when he, according to the history I know, accepted baptism only on his deathbed? I guess I have to review my history or you review yours because they conflict. You know, I had this special interest in the history of Constantine the Great because my father named me Constantino.

Surely,the majority of open-minded people can agree that the shroud is just a little bit special, whether they believe in the religious possibilities or not? I remember the documentary mentioned earlier which was shown some years ago and involved work carried out by NASA scientists. One of the surprising findings was their experiment on the optical characteristics of the shroud where the image maintained its integrity when photographed from different angles rather than appearing skewed as might be expected.Their "conclusion" was that this was no ordinary painting (or scorching)but appeared to have been generated by a mammoth surge of energy -which would be consistent with a religious interpretation.

The carbon 14 dating may well have been affected by this but I feel that the real reason for the estimate of an age equivalent to Mediaeval times would be explained by the sample taken from the outer extremities of the cloth, which were more likely to have been repaired following the fire. Clearly, the Church authorities did not want to "interfere" with the shroud at the point of the image itself.

One other concern with the idea of some Middle Age ,possibly Italian, artist mocking up a fake is the question ( again mentioned earlier) of the presence of pollens found, not in Italy, but in the areas around Jerusalem. Would a quick-buck forger really have gone to the trouble of taking it there - especially when the science of pollens was not available then to confirm authenticity or otherwise?

It comes down to believing what you choose to believe. As the Pope infers, the shroud can be a vehicle for faith in bringing people to contemplate the Passion and resurrection of Christ but also can help those who choose not to believe to reflect on human suffering and the sometimes terrible way we treat each other. The "sovereign majesty" can be divine or human, or both.

Absolutely a forger would have done, IMHO. As any good con artist will tell you, the mark has to believe the provenance, and if 13th century Catholics were good at anything, it was separating the marks from their coin. There's probably been enough splinters from the true cross to make a full scale model of the Titanic.

That con man in the middle ages or dark ages as some historians put it, must have at least one motive to create his intricate,inexplicable,inimitable forgery: Just for Laughs, like saying to smart scientists and fine artists today: he, he , he, see if you can do this! What motive has he to fool Christians in his time and in our time with his forgery? He must not have created his work for pecuniary interest because the image was locked in some obscure box in some obscure house in some obscure place for some obscure time. He did not exhibit it in public with a coin drop box. If we cannot establish the motive for painting the image, perhaps it is the true burial cloth of Jesus.

A Greek Orthodox seer and writer, Miss Vassula Ryden, whose controversial book, True Life in God, the then pope Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger reviewed, wrote that Jesus himself claimed the image of Turin is his image. Vassula claims that Jesus speaks to her through internal locution and uses her hand to write his message in the same way God uses Moses' hand to write the ten commandments. Vassula, although a Greek Orthodox, defends the Roman Catholic Church and Papacy. This book, according to Vassula, is an appeal of Jesus Christ to Christians, Orthodox, and the Catholic Church to unite already because he is coming back and we can already hear his footsteps. Those who wish to "hear the Voice of the Shepherd" speaking to the Modern World about his imminent coming may browse True Life in God(TLIG, the voice who claimed" Turin is my Image."

Money. Maybe he showed it in private viewings. Maybe he showed it in public. Maybe he got home and dropped dead, I neither know nor care; it's all speculation isn't it? Or as you would have it, a sacred miracle.
And as I commented somewhere in this thread on April 5th, the whole house of cards, including the miracle of the Turin Shroud, immaculate conception, transubstantiation etc, falls apart without faith. So the whole of your superstitious last paragraph is dismissed for me, by the statement "If we cannot establish the motive for painting the image, perhaps it is the true burial cloth of Jesus."
This is gibberish to me: If we cannot establish anything about the shroud, then we can't establish anything. Picture or none, it is a piece of cloth, so yes, it may be the burial cloth of anyone. Even if you do believe in Jesus there's solid evidence date it to the 13thC, so what? Jesus was 1300 years old?
So your sentence really says that you are believing whatever you want, with no logic, reason or evidence. That's where you lose me.

I don't care if it's fake or not. As the writer's made it clear, it's more an icon than an idol. Even though it's fake, it wouldn't mean that Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection is fake. The two events could be separate.

It means the game is up but the pope and his sheep refuse to concede, just as his predecessors refused to concede on the theory of evolution and heliocentricism. It's this stupidity that is destroying Christianity, not science, not gay rights and not modern life. It's just the plain, obvious and consistent stupidity of the church itself.

Their "stupidity", as alleged by you, has by far the least thing to do with your "evolution and heliocentricism", let alone "science, gay rights..." May I put it: when you made a mistake going into a toilet of wrong sex to you, it's nothing to do with the success of Obama being elected. Not that hard to get, is it?

I don't care if it's fake or not. As the writer's made it clear, it's more an icon than an idol. Even though it's fake, it wouldn't mean that Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection is fake. The two events could be separate.

They never linked the Christianity with the Shroud. Draw an analogy between it and everyday scene that you saw those Christians walking into a building (called the "cathedrals") for mass. They believe in their faith NOT because of the beautifully built cathedrals, BUT BECAUSE of Christian faith. (You, as an onlooker, would jump at a conclusion that they believe because of the cathedrals, because you don't believe at all!) Even in medeival times they mistook the shroud as a cloth for him, what was in their mind was the story of Crucifixion and the meaning behind. They believed, not because of the shroud, but because what reminded them of out of the shroud.

The message of the Shroud of Turin is more than the inquiry of the identity of the man whose image is stamped on it. Lest we forget that our Lord and Messiah Jesus Christ was not the only one who has been crucified in history. But he said: Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
~ John 15:13, Holy Bible (New International Version).
For no man dies alone, for even a criminal often dies for the sake of others, those who shares his life with him and also the spoils as well.

The greatest sacrifice is not the selfish sacrifice we make for our own selfish gain, but the sacrifice we make for the redemption of others.

The writer considers the Pope's failure to admit the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin as a "surprise". Such comments only highlight the widespread ignorance concerning all things religious (and espcially Catholic) that is the hallmark of today's western culture. So no surprise there. No modern Pope, not even the much-maligned Benedict, has ever implied that the shroud is undoubtedly authentic. Indeed, its authenticity or otherwise has no bearing at all on the Catholic faith. The "Man of the Shroud", who may, or may not, be Jesus Christ, is a common expression within the Catholic Church, and certainly not coined by Francis.

The flora & fauna from the shroud come from only one place in IS-RA-EL, the Dead Sea area around Qumran, known to you as "Nazareth" (city of the Nasoreans) also "Damascus" (boundary) and from Revelation "Sodom & Egypt..where our lord was crucified"
Jesus' messianic church has nothing at all to do with you "catholic" absurdities...

I find many of the comments posted here, low class and disgusting. It sounds like a bunch of badly behaved children ridiculing the religious kid that sits quietly in the back of the room. To post such ridicule does nothing to advance society or solve any problems, but it does tell volumes about the poster.
Christianity is the World’s largest religion and has been around for over 2,000 years. There must be something about it that has given it its staying power, for that many people to keep and spread the belief.
There are many reasons that the carbon dating is probably wrong, and other tests have proven that it is a definite possibility of being what it is said to be. If you really are interested you can do your own research.
There is a reason they call it faith, and why one does better with it as opposed to being without it. Many of the cultural problems would not exist if we reverted back to our Christian teaching.

It´s the other way round. The only atheist child gets normally ridiculed. The times of Rome with christians getting burned for blasphemy are long gone.

I was the only atheist with a scientific understanding in a religious class and they all tried to believe what this religious "teacher" told.
I was the only dissenting voice. The teacher lost most arguments but the others just tried to believe to be good sheep.
In the end it´s only a matter of authority. Those with the purse or stick rule and tell the majority what to think and believe.

These extra-ecclesial devotions, i.e., devotions sustained by the faithful despite lack of official approval, is often how religion works. In the early church, saints were "canonized" by popular acclamation. The conclave was created by the people of Rome fed up with do-nothing cardinals. This democratic church has its appeal but the hierarchy has been a useful moderating force. A more participatory church might encourage women priests or it might encourage Creationist survivalists preparing for the eminent Second Coming. It's been said that the longevity of the Church can be attributed to how well it's been able to deal with fanatics (Protestant Reformation and Great Schism excepted).

Why is it that those who are so fast to condemn religion, believe every thing the Government says?
We should place our faith in Religion, and doubt government, not the other way around, to stay free people.
The ones with dangerous preconceived minds are liberal that follow the latest cause de jour. Last week it was global warming, yesterday it was gun control, next week it will be genderless marriage, and homosexual adoptions.